Diablo III Releases on May 15th!

Diablo III is to be released on May 15th.. a global release (or at least nearly global) with both retail and digital being made available at the same time.  You can pre-purchase the game now from Blizzard, for £44.99.

Those who have signed up for the World of Warcraft Annual Pass will get the game for free, along with the Tyrael’s Charger mount and beta access to the next expansion: Mists of Pandaria.

I’m really looking forward to the game.  Two months to clear my backlog first, though?  Unlikely to happen! 😀

Mists of Pandaria – Pet Battle!

As well as adding the Pandaran race, a new continent, the new Monk class, and an overhaul of the Talent Calculator, the Mists of Pandaria expansion also brings with it a pet battling system.

There’s a review of the system on MMO Champion.. collection, levelling and training of pets, battling and stats, which sound a little like Pokemon and Geomon, two ‘pet’ collecting and battling games I’ve been playing a bit of recently.

Pets will now be tradeable, even once trained.  Some pets will only be out in the wild during certain seasons or weather conditions, so trading will be a nice option for those pets you can’t find yourself.  This reminds me rather a lot of Geomon, where I’m a little frustrated by the idea I can’t collect all the Espers myself.. and I like to aim for a full collection once I start!

I particularly like the idea that pets will become account wide.. I have a great collection on my main character, Kirria, including many which were gifts from friends, and I wouldn’t fancy my chances at collecting them all again.  I look forward to trying the system out for myself when I eventually get enough spare time to make it worthwhile re-subscribing to WoW.. but I’m not sure about naming all the pets I’ve collected!